Whozits, a Kids' Biography Blog

Everything I Know I Learned from Snow White

2011-12-20T10:19:00.000-08:00

This week (December 21st) marks the 74th anniversary of the debut of the Walt Disney classic, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Ugh, I've said it. I've used the word "classic." That's a barnacle of a term, isn't it? It sticks like cement and once it's there it's nearly impossible to pry off. Worst of all, it keeps you from getting a really clear view of what you've got. Hard to see a "classic" with a fresh eye. Unless you're four, it's hard to watch Snow White as if you were seeing it for the first time. Hard to turn back the clock and see what audiences saw on December 21st, 1937, when Snow White first hit the screens, not as a creaky classic, but as a grand experiment in animated movie-making.

It wasn't a sure thing, you know. No one had ever seen a full-length animated movie before and the idea seemed preposterous to many. Cartoons were for kids. They were short. Heck, they were even called "shorts." They were filler, an appetizer for the real movie, not the main course movie itself. No one would sit through a full-length cartoon, critics said. Dwarfs or no dwarfs.

Besides, cartoons were supposed to be full of gags. Funny, slapstick-style easily digestible humor. They weren't dark and shadowy like the fairy tale on which Walt's movie would be based. What was he thinking?

Walt put himself and his company on the line to make his dream movie. He spent three years, committing his entire staff and a good deal of his own money. It is customary with classics to call their creators visionaries. Walt was that, but he had a vision in more than the metaphorical sense. He saw Snow White--literally saw it, frame by frame, as if it played already in his head. He dictated what he wanted to his animators, acting out scenes for them. He knew how each character should look and act, right down to the expressions on their faces. He even knew which kinds of mushrooms should be growing in the woods in the background.

On December 21, 1937, Walt's determination paid off. People lined up for blocks for a chance to see the movie. Animation now hardly seems worth a second glance. But Snow White was as cutting edge for its time as Star Wars and Avatar were for theirs. The movie broke records for ticket sales and won an Academy Award. And had Walt listened to the nay-sayers, he would have been the only one to see it. So glad he shared.

Everything I Know I Learned from Milton Hershey

2011-09-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

This week (September 13) we celebrate the 154th birthday of chocolate king, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Milton Hershey.

I once gave a school visit talk about my then-latest book at which a second grader asked, wide-eyed, "You mean Walt Disney was a real person?" I guess some names just come to mean more than the people who own them: Disney, John Deere, and J. C. Penney, for example.

Milton Hershey is that kind of name. The word "Hershey" evokes, not images of the man, but of a brown-wrappered bar, a rich dark aroma, and the luscious feeling of smooth milk chocolate melting on one's tongue. Have I made your mouth water?

But like Disney, Milton Hershey was a very real person. Few would have predicted when he began his candy business that it would be the fabulous success it became, or that his name would become synonomous with milk chocolate. In fact, in the beginning, he was a rather spectacular failure. His businesses failed, he ran out of money, and he begged family members for a loan so often that they pretty much stopped talking to him. Maybe he was just the kind of person who was determined to succeed. Maybe it was a matter of confidence, faith, and bold perseverance. Or maybe he just didn't know how to do anything else besides make candy. Whatever the reason, he did eventually succeed. Magnificently.

Good story so far, right? Ah, but--to channel Ron Popeil--wait, there's more! The nickel Hershey bar was such a success that it made Milton Hershey a very wealthy man. And for a while he did live a champagne lifestyle: a grand mansion, exotic trips. He was even booked to travel first class on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. (He didn't go.)

But the death of his beloved wife Kitty at a young age sharpened his sense of perspective. He wanted to do something meaningful in her honor. They had already started a school for orphan boys. Now he donated all that chocolate money to the Milton Hershey School--all of it. He transferred his entire fortune, valued at about sixty million dollars, to the Hershey Trust for the use of his school. He did it quietly, with no fanfare, no press conference. It wasn't until some years after that the press got wind of the donation and disclosed it to the world. Eventually Milton even donated his mansion for the use of the town he'd founded.

It is the chocolate that we think of when we hear Milton Hershey's name. But it is the school that became his true legacy. Because he gave it everything he had.

Everything I Know I Learned from Sister St. Stephen

2011-08-18T07:37:00.000-07:00

I am old enough to be able to answer the question "Where were you when President Kennedy was killed?" and young enough so that the memories of that day are hazy. I was six, a first grade student at St. Thomas School in Providence, RI. As a class we were preparing for our first confession that day, and just returning from a trip to the church to get our first tour of the inside of the confessional. That is all a matter of record, not memory. The memories, on the other hand, are spotty, grainy, the kind of scenes you see when waking from a deep sleep and first prying your eyes open.

I remember the priest's black car pulling up in front of Sister St. Stephen as she led us in two lines (boys in one, girls in the other)across the parking lot. I remember the blank look on his face as he beckoned her over to whisper something.

Back in the classroom I remember Sister hurriedly choosing Phyllis L. to "be in charge" and then rushing out. I remember the strip of wall covering tacked to the wall above the blackboard, gold with little white flowers. I must have had a long time to study that wall, because as the minutes ticked by, we began to realize that Sister wasn't coming back. She had left us ALONE. Even Phyllis seemed a little nonplussed by this.

I remember all of us discovering that with no Sister in the room, we could taste the forbidden fruit of talking in class. It felt deliciously naughty. (Thankfully, Phyllis was not the kind of girl to take her "in charge" position too seriously, and partook as eagerly as the rest of us.) The sound level in the room grew. I remember noticing that we were hearing the same sound level from other classrooms, too. I remember someone--or maybe all of us together--realizing what this meant: that all the nuns had disappeared from all the classrooms in the school. OK, this was HUGE.

I remember hearing a voice say, "Something really bad must have happened." But we couldn't imagine what. What could the nuns be doing that was so important they had left us all alone? I remember Phyllis bursting into tears.

At some point, Sister must have come back and dismissed us from school for the day, because the next thing I remember was going home to find my mother and aunt in front of the television set in tears, and I was told what the really bad thing was.

I can't imagine that happening today, that any teacher would leave her charges alone the way Sister St. Stephen did that day. And in fact when a really bad thing happened on September 11, 2001, when my own children were in school, the teachers continued with classes as if the world was just fine outside the classroom.

But I can't help thinking that Sister--all the sisters--had it right. That day they were gathered in front of a radio in the principal's office, trying to come to terms with the worst news they could imagine. Nothing worse than a little childish rowdiness happened in our clasroom, after all. The sisters chose a front seat to history over us, and I'm OK with that.

Everything I Know I Learned from Aunt Carrie's

2011-07-25T12:57:00.000-07:00

If you're a native Rhode Islander (and that's pronounced "Ruh-DIE-lan-der") Aunt Carrie's should be as familiar a summer name as Del's. Maybe the name evokes an image of a wooden building, bleached by sun and summer breezes. Maybe it conjures up the scent of salt air and the screech of gulls. But it certainly should make your mouth water for the taste of fresh hot clamcakes.

Aunt Carrie's has been a Point Judith tradition since long before I was a little girl. Clamcakes at Aunt Carrie's were a special treat after a day at the beach when I was growing up. My brothers and sisters and I would wait to see which way my Dad headed after a day at Scarborough Beach. If he turned the car right, we were going home. But if we went left, we knew we were getting clamcakes at Aunt Carrie's. No greasy paper bag was ever so appreciated.

I married a native Rhode Islander, so every summer we try to make the trip to Point Judith for chowder and clamcakes. So it is with a great deal of embarrassment that I have to tell you that this time, somehow, we got lost. We were coming from a different direction, we were talking, yadda, yadda, all the usual excuses, but the fact is, we weren't sure which way to head. (All those hazy post-beach memories were trying to push through to my consciousness, but hey, my Dad always drove.)

We don't have a GPS in the car, and we don't yet have an iPhone (next month, maybe) but we did have my husband's Nook Color. All we had to do was find a WiFi signal. Which seems easy enough until you're driving up and down Route 1 arguing. Nothing. We tried the GPS function on the cell phone, which I've never used. Too confusing, and neither of us could read the tiny print anyway. Back to the Nook. We pulled into the parking lot of a Holiday Inn in a desperate attempt to pick up their WiFi signal. No luck. We needed a password. Arrgh!

So much technology in that car, and it wasn't enough. The prospect of those clamcakes was beginning to crumble like a sandcastle at the end of the day. Suddenly I looked up at the Holiday Inn before me. "How about if I go in and just ask for directions?" I suggested. A minute later we were headed in the correct direction toward Point Judith.

Sometimes the old fashioned research methods really are the best. Oh, and the clamcakes were great. As always.

Everything I Know I Learned from Johannes Gutenberg

2011-06-23T09:42:00.000-07:00

Today, June 23rd, we celebrate the 613th (or thereabouts)birthday of the inventor of moveable type printing, Johannes Gutenberg.

If you're a follower of this blog, you know that I've written before about the impact of libraries on my early life. On a hot summer day, there was nothing like the cool, dark comfort of a building full of books. I'd load up the rack on my bike and spend the next week by the kiddie pool in the back yard with a book propped on my damp bathing suited lap. Add a couple of peaches and that's still my idea of summer heaven.

Except now it's a Kindle in my lap. I feel a little guilty about that, and a little like I'm cheating on old Johannes. (BTW, according to Wikipedia, his full name is Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg. Try saying that tree times fast!) I have to give JG his due, after all. His invention is routinely ranked number one on the list of hot inventions of the second millenium. He ushered in a new information age and sparked a revolution in culture, science, and religion. It is not hyperbole to say that he and his invention transformed a world, not to mention giving me those wonderful afternoons in dusty libraries.

But I have to say, I am loving my new Kindle, especially for research. In something lighter than a box of crackers I've got dozens of books. Heck, I've got War and Peace in there. My son, usually a Luddite about such things, bought his so he could take his entire lirary along when he deployed to Afghanistan.

And so I can't help wondering along with other bibliophiles, what will happen to Gutenberg's invention in the age of the Kindle. Here's what The Institute for the Future of the Book has to say: The printed page is giving way to the networked screen. For the past five hundred years, humans have used print — the book and its various page-based cousins — to move ideas across time and space. Radio, cinema and television emerged in the last century and now, with the advent of computers, we are combining media to forge new forms of expression. For now, we use the word "book" broadly, even metaphorically, to talk about what has come before — and what might come next.

"What might come next--" it boggles the mind. Libraries have already changed, of course. My local library has offered e-books for several years, as well as the traditional books in stacks I remember so well. It just means those summer afternoons by the pool will look a little different.

Pass me a peach.

Everything I Know I Learned from Jacques Cousteau

2011-06-10T06:27:00.000-07:00

This week, on June 11, we celebrate the 101st anniversary of the birth of oceanographer and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau.

I remember well the "Jaccques Cousteau Specials" on TV when I was growing up. (I'm not the only one. I read somewhere that Stephen Hillenburg, creator of SpongeBob SquarePants, created the French narrator of the cartoon, who sounds an awful lot like Cousteau, as an homage.) They were a part of the cultural wallpaper of growing up in that era and I made it a point to watch whenever his shows were on.

But why? I wasn't particularly interested in oceanography, and certainly never dreamed of being a diver. I liked science, but never considered a career in it. And aside from Lenten Friday lunches of tuna salad sandwiches, I wasn't even particularly fond of fish. So in an age before "must see TV," what was it that made his specials so compelling?

No doubt it was his voice. Not just the rich French accent, though there was that. His slow, patient voice with that delicious accent still gives me goosebumps, and is what most people (like Hillenburg) recall of those TV specials. But it was more. Cousteau made oceanography accessible. He took
complex, esoteric scientific concepts and made them simple enough for everyone to grasp--without just dumbing down the science. He was a superb teacher and communicator. And he never failed to convey his enthusiasm for his subject matter. This was a man who clearly had a passion for the sea and all its wonders and he managed to bring us all along with him every time he spoke.

That is all I could ever hope to do for my readers. Without the fish, of course.

Everything I Know I Learned from Edward Hitchcock

2011-05-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

Today, May 24th, we celebrate the 218th anniversary of the birth of minister, geologist, and dinosaur hunter Edward Hitchcock.

Hitchcock himself would have frowned at that last description, of course. He would not have recognized the concept of a dinosaur. He lived in an age when the very word had yet to be invented. The footprints he hunted down, collected, and described in such detail were mysteries to him. Yet that is exactly what modern science has shown him to be. Hunting down the fossilized dinosaur footprints of New England became his passion.

It all started quite by accident. Hitchcock was a respected geologist when someone came to him with an unusual rock. It had a strange three-toed track running across it, as if a turkey had run through mud and left its footprints behind. Hitchcock was hooked. He spent the rest of his life studying the strange trackways that the New England soil coughed up so frequently. He amassed the world’s largest collection of dinosaur footprints—some 10,000 individual specimens. He devised a system of classifying the fossil footprints that is used to this day, hunting for clues to the animals that made them. He called these animals “lithichnozoa,” stony track animals. Out of all that passion and many late nights studying rocks by candle light came a new science, the science of ichnology, the study of trace fossils.

Sadly, the one find that would have shed light on the identity of the track makers eluded him. The New England soil was not conducive to the preservation of fossilized bones. Hitchcock had only the footprints, and as it turns out it’s difficult to identify an animal from “the bottom up.” His best guess was that the tracks were left by an extinct species of giant bird. Not a bad guess actually. Edward Hitchcock, dinosaur hunter, worked his whole life and established a new science without ever having met a dinosaur.

Everything I Know I Learned from Dolley Madison

2011-05-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

This week, May 20, we celebrate the 243rd anniversary of the birth of First Lady Dolley Madison.

Let's start at the end of this story. When Dolley Madison died on July 12, 1849, her funeral procession was one of the largest in the history of Washington. The president was there, as was every member of Congress, officers of both the army and the navy, her many friends, and a good many of the citizens of Washington. So who was this celebrated and much-loved lady?

Current opinion seems to have downsized Dolley. I've read too much about her beauty and her love of fashion. She's been cast as a party-girl, and I have to believe that that is a reflection of our own shallow culture. Dolley was beautiful, yes. And she most certainly had a flair for fashion. But this was a woman who had a clear vision of her role as first lady. Dolley knew how to set priorities and hold to them. Think Hillary, not Paris.

Dolley opened the President's House, as it was known then, to everyone. She greeted everyone warmly, as a close friend, and took care to pay special attention to anyone who was alone. She saw her role as one of peacemaker. She knew that politics made for strong opinions, and she sought to soothe ruffled feathers and build consensus wherever possible. In her low-necked gowns and her feathered turbans, Dolley played diplomat.

Her shining moment came when Washington was under attack during the War of 1812. With her husband, President James Madison, away, Dolley stayed at the President's House, packing for an evacuation. The content of those trunks is telling: important government papers, books, a clock, and other furnishings from the White House. With cannons booming, and British troops approaching, she could not be persuaded to leave until these imporatnt items were safe. At the last moment, with servants imploring her to leave, she had the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington removed from its frame, and she packed that, too. She would not let it fall into British hands. Only then did she consent to leave. Later that night, British troops invaded and set fire to the President's House. She watched the flames from a distance.

Those lovely gowns? They burned.

Everything I Know I Learned from NESCBWI

2011-05-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

If you were there, you know....AWESOME!

I've been home two days now and I'm still riding the wave of enthusiasm that I boarded at the NESBWI Conference in Fitchburg, MA. I felt so fortunate to listen to five wonderful keynotes from the likes of Jane Yolen, Tomie DePaola, Steven Mooser, Lin Oliver, and Harold Underdown. They are, after all, the rock stars of our industry. Jane was funny and numinous (I had to look it up), Tomie was funny and generous, Steven was funny and sweet, Lin was funny and instructive, and Harold (with the help of Mr. P and Mr. O) was funny and encouraging.

It's enough to make me want to add some humor to my own writing. And, with the help of Donna Gephart's great intensive workshop, I just might be able to do that. And Julie Berry's helpful tips will help me to get the thing finished. I was especially happy to have a chance to chat with Loree Griffin Burns, who presented an in-depth look at the research process.

Above all, I count myself fortunate to belong to a group of such generous and supportive professionals. I went to the conference solo, since my regular critique group members were not able to attend. I now know, Jane, how to "touch magic." You plop yourself down with a group and ask, "Mind if I join you?" The result never failed to be magical. I met the nicest, most interesting people, and came away positively enchanted.

But, alas, enchantments end. And I am left with the real world and Lin's advice: Do the work!

Everything I Know I Learned from Orson Welles

2011-05-05T06:43:00.000-07:00

This week, on May 6, we mark the 96th anniversary of the birth of actor, writer, and director Orson Welles.

When I visit schools, I often explain to students why I write nonfiction instead of fiction. I talk about the cool fiction stories that they might have read, stories that are funny or scary or mysterious. “But,” I tell them, “if I tell you a story that is funny, or scary or mysterious, and then I say ‘This really happened…this is a true story,' I think that is magical.” Seeing “Based on a true story” at the beginning of a movie has never failed to make me sit up a little straighter and pay closer attention. The True Story—it just gives me goosebumps.

Orson Welles understood that. He was the one, after all, who found fame for taking a fiction story about an alien invasion and turning it into a mock radio newscast. By recasting H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds as a True Story, Welles managed to give his listeners a ripping good case of goosebumps.

Wells’ novel was already well-known in 1938, when The War of the Worlds was performed as a Halloween broadcast on October 30 of that year. The script for the radio show changed the novel’s setting from nineteenth century London to contemporary New Jersey. It paired an ordinary broadcast of dance music with increasingly ominous news flashes which periodically interrupted the broadcast. The formula mimicked typical radio news broadcasts of the day. It gave the broadcast a unique feeling of immediacy and urgency. The result was widespread panic. People tuning in were led to believe that aliens from Mars were landing in an invasion force—right here, right now. Police stations took hundreds of calls from terrified people convinced the Earth was being invaded. Some swore they could smell poison gas or see flashing lights in the distance.

At the end of the play Welles broadcast a disclaimer reminding listeners that the episode was in honor of Halloween. It was just his equivalent, he said, of “dressing up in a sheet, jumping out of a bush and saying ‘Boo!’” Don’t believe it. Welles knew just what he was doing. He knew the power of the True Story.

Everything I Know I Learned from the Red Baron

2011-04-21T07:39:00.001-07:00

This week, on April 21st, we celebrate the 93rd anniversary of the death of famed World War I ace Manfred von Richtofen, aka the Red Baron.

On of the trends in children's publishing is the shifting of responsibility for book promotions from the publisher to the often slender shoulders of the author. We are encouraged to get out there and sell via Facebook and Twitter and blogs, with fancy book launches, book birthdays, and trailers. You can't open an SCBWI Bulletin or other trade publication for kidlit authors these days without seeing some advice on book promotions, whether online or via more traditionbal avenues, and we are constantly admonished that promoting is no longer optional. It is expected. Predictably, most authors are terified at the thought of having their baby sink into oblivion. So we join the big noisy parade, whether we feel fully prepared for it or not.

Now, publishers don't get all riled. I know dollars are tight in this economy. And I know that no one can give a book a push like its author. I also know some authors who are incredibly imaginative at this, and excel at getting--and keeping--their book in the spotlight.

But for a lot of us, the reason we write is because we love writing, not because we like promoting. We are not fully comfortable with the whole idea of the spotlight and feel as if we are shouting, "Hey, look at me! I wrote a book!" (Never a good idea, by the way.)

We could learn a thing or two from the Red Baron.

Now, I read The Right Stuff, and I know that fighter pilots of any generation are not by nature modest. But this guy makes other fighter pilots look like shrinking violets. Richtofen was a master at aerial combat, and made sure everyone knew it. After downing his first enemy plane, he ordered a small silver cup made to commemorate the event, and had it engraved with the date of his victory. After that, he had a new cup made for each new victory. By one report, he amassed a total of sixty such silver cups. The only thing stopping him from continuing the practice was that Germany, which was blockaded at the time, began to run short of silver. No wonder!

He received his famous nickname, of course, from his practice of having his airplane painted bright red. His aim was clearly to be noticed. It was the only way he could be sure he would be distinguished from other fliers from the ground. Nothing stands out agianst a blue sky like a bright red plane. Combined with his skill as a tactician and his mounting tally of kills, the effect was to instill fear and respect in enemy fliers. His legend was born.

So I guess I should be more fearless when promoting my next book. I should not be afraid to stand out, to stand, yes, in the spotlight. Maybe a bright red book cover wouldn't hurt either.

Everything I Know I Learned From The Thirteen

2011-04-07T15:12:00.001-07:00

This week, on April 8, we celebrate the 122nd anniversary of the birth of pioneer aviator Blanche Stuart Scott.

In 1910, at age 21, Blanche became the first woman in the United States to fly an airplane. Later she was the first professional woman pilot, performing stunts at airshows. She made the first woman’s long distance flight. She was the first female test pilot and the first American woman to ride in a jet.

The lady knew her way around the sky.

She also knew about discrimination. Her first flying instructor, a man, at first refused to teach her beause she was a woman. When she insisted, he rigged her plane to keep her from taking off. (She figured out the problem and flew anyway.) She would have been right at home with the women I've been reading about in Tanya Lee Stone's wonderful Almost Astronauts: Thirteen Women Who Dared to Dream.

In direct, pull-no-punches prose, Stone relates the story of thirteen women who dared to dream of becoming astonauts. In the early 1960's, twenty years before NASA accepted women into its astronaut program, they became the "Mercury Thirteen." They were thirteen women, all acomplished pilots, who underwent the same rigorous physical, psychological, and piloting tests as the seven male Mercury astronauts. They knew full well, as Blanche did, what they were up against. They knew that to be taken half as seriously as the men, they had to be twice as good. They passed every test, jumped every hurdle but one--the blind sexism of nearly everyone around them. Their unyielding determination and courage shine in Stone's telling.

So does the arrogance of discrimination. Again and again, Stone offers up examples of the condescension the thirteen suffered. From the patronizing nicknames the thirteen were given ("Fly Gals," "Astronettes") to the smug, smirky attitudes of reporters ("A pretty girl like you must have thought about marriage....") Stone leaves the reader feeling furious at what these tough women had to endure.

Of course, Blanche would have recognized those same attitudes. Maybe that is what makes me most furious: that so little had changed between her time and the thirteens'.

Everything I Know I Learned from Mickey Spillane

2011-03-10T13:27:00.001-08:00

This week, on March 9, we celebrate the 93rd birthday of crime author Mickey Spillane.

Here is what I know about Mickey Spillane:
1. He is the creator of gritty detective Mike Hammer.
2. He got his start writing comic books.
3. He wrote his first novel, I, THE JURY, in less than three weeks.
4. He wrote it because he needed the money to buy a house.

It's that last factoid that I find interesting. Every writer I've ever known has wrestled with the question: do I write because I want to or do I write for the money? There's no doubt money is seductive. Especially if by earning money you can pay enough bills to ensure that you can spend more time writing. But then, are you spending that time writing what you want or simply what will pay so that you can keep spending more time writing...well, round and round we go.

At the heart of the conundrum, of course, is the assumption that what pays is different from what is near and dear. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case more often than not. What most of us want is to write someting different, something that breaks the mold that we can call truly our own. Marketing departments are skittish about new and different. They like tried and true. They'd push everyone onto the same bandwagon if they could, as long as that bandwagon keeps rolling along. Happy is the writer who's always dreamed of writing a teen paranormal romance in today's market.

I suppose here would be a good place to insert a plea for balance: you know, prostitute ourselves just a little so that we can free up some time for our "real" work. But I'm frankly not so sure.

I'm not sure I could work up a passion to write on a topic I'm not passionate about. Maybe it's just that nobody has dangled a big enough carrot in front of me. But writing still seems like such a mysterious process to me. I don't know where the words come from. I know only that when the passion is there, they come freely. I suspect that whole mysterious process would fall apart for me if I tried to do it minus the passion. The very thought makes me cringe.

So, I guess there we have it: I'm the kind of writer who can't write just for money. I'm the kind of writer who needs to feel invested. I'm the kind of writer who's destined to keep her day job.

Anyway, I'm glad it all worked out for Mickey.

Everything I Know I Learned from Chester Nimitz

2011-02-24T09:16:00.000-08:00

This week, on February 24th, we celebrate the 126th anniversary of the birth of World War II naval hero, Admiral Chester Nimitz.

Over the past few months, when I’ve told people that I’ve been researching the life of Chester Nimitz, I’ve received more than a few blank stares, polite smiles, and an outright “Who’s that?” Chester Nimitz, is seems, is a name we’ve forgotten. It’s a name we should know.

As Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet during the war, Nimitz was the architect of the US victory in the Pacific. Assigned the post just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was told by FDR to go to Pearl and "stay there till the war is won." He arived in Hawaii on Christmas Day and was horrified at what he saw. It was his task to rebuild the crippled fleet and to halt the Japanese advance across the Pacific.

In a way, Nimitz had been preparing for the job since boyhood. His grandfather, to whom he was very close, had been a merchant sailor. Young Chester had listened wide-eyed to tales of the sea. "The sea," his grandfather told him, "like life itself, is a stern taskmaster. The best way to get along with either is to learn all you can and do your best and don't worry, especially about things over which you have no control." Nimitz took the words as his personal philosophy.

Nimitz graduated from the US Naval Academy seventh in a class of 114. He spent his next years at sea, learning firsthand what a stern taskmaster it was. One night, at the helm of a destroyer, he felt the ship stop. He'd run it aground on a mudbank. The he remembered his grandfather's words. He'd done all he could. Now all he could do was wait for morning for another ship to pull him off. He earned a reprimand for the error, and learned a lesson.

As CinCPaC, he set out to push the Japanese fleet back across the Pacific. His decisive victory came at the Battle of Midway. Alerted that Japanese code had been broken and that enemy ships were underway, he set his ships into position for a surprise attack. Then he could only wait. Once more, he'd done all he could. By the end of the battle, the enemy's carrier force had all but been destroyed.

On September 2, 1945, Nimitz at last fulfilled the mission he'd been given after Pearl Harbor. There, on the deck of the USS Missouri under cloudy skies, he accepted the formal surrender of Japanese forces. The war was over.

And that, boys and girls, is why we should know the name Chester Nimitz.

Everything I Know I Learned from Thomas Edison

2011-02-11T13:13:00.000-08:00

This week, February 11th, we celebrate the 164th anniversary of the birth of inventor Thomas Edison.

In researching a subject biographers always end up with an abundance of great information, all of which illuminates the subject in some way, all of which we are terribly invested in, and most of which we have not a prayer of using in the final product. It hurts. I’m often asked how I decide what I’ll use and what I must cut. One biographer I know solved the problem by, as she puts it, “writing to quotes.” A good quote can often speak volumes about your subject when you just don’t have room for volumes in your manuscript, especially in material for children, where the writing must be extraordinarily tight.

With no subject is this more true than for Thomas Edison. He is the man who said the following: Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits. And: Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. And: Great ideas originate in the muscles.

Well. Bit of a theme there, wouldn’t you say? Clearly this was a man with little patience for armchair inventors with great notions but without the drive to put them into action. GET OFF YOUR BACKSIDE! he must have wanted to scream at such dabblers. JUST DO IT ALREADY!

Great advice for writers too, isn’t it? The idea is never enough. It’s the writing that counts, the writing that's both the sweet and the bitterly difficult part of the task. Even the dabblers know that. That's why they dabble.

So...GO WRITE!

Everything I Know I Learned from W. C. Fields

2011-01-27T09:09:00.000-08:00

This week (January 29) marks the the 131st anniversary of the birth of W. C. Fields.

Conventional Wisdom says that it was Fields who once said, "Never act in a picture with kids or animals. They'll upstage you every time." I've since read that Conventional Wisdom was mistaken, but hey, it does seem like his style. After all, he did say, "I like children--fried."

Now personally I like being upstaged. Every so often at a school visit a child will ask if I'm famous (ha!). I always answer that I'm not and I don't want to be. I want only my work to be famous. I want my subjects to outshine me every time, and if I write well, they do.

But really, where would a children's writer be without kids or animals? They're pretty much our stock in trade. Talking pigs and pigeons, round-headed kids dragging big purple crayons--that's who we're all about, isn't it?

But I think I know what Fields meant. It's all too easy for any book with cute kids and fuzzy animals to wander into the land of the saccharine, to be just so sweet and adorable, the book loses all relevance to the real world. It's what editors mean when they say a book isn't "edgy" enough: it's just too sweet to be real.

I think any book, fiction or nonfiction, needs a balance. Even a fuzzy velveteen rabbit can have an edge.

Everything I Know I Learned from Charles Perrault

2011-01-13T06:54:00.001-08:00

This week, January 12, we celebrate the 383rd anniversary of the birth of fairy tale author Charles Perrault.

Ah, fairy tales. Once again I have to go back to the set of books I was given when I was nine or ten. It was a set of abridged "classics." Fat little books they were, mostly because they were two books in one. LITTLE WOMEN flipped over to LITTLE MEN. There was TOM SAWYER on one side, HUCK FINN on the other. And there were two sets of fairy tales, one by Hans Christian Andersen, the other by the Brothers Grimm. I literally read those books to shreds. (Nothing to pass on to my own kids--sorry guys.)

But it was Perrault who laid the foundations built upon by Andersen and Grimm. Before Perrault, fairy tales were part of the oral tradition, well-known stories passed from one generation to another, but never written down. Perrault set these tales down with a great deal of wit and elegant detail. He published his book, TALES OF MOTHER GOOSE, in 1697 in Paris. And with that, a new genre was born. (Think of it--writing something so groundbreaking that it constitutes an entirely new genre. Yikes!)

Among Perrault's stories were some of the most familiar fairy tales of Western Civilization: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood. These stories are so well-rooted in our culture, it's easy to overlook them. But next time you're tempted, try counting all the different ways the Cinderella story has been told. It's been updated, reworked, staged as an opera, a ballet, and a musical. There are hundreds of movie versions, going all the way back to the silent era.

As children's writers we sometimes are dismissed by adults as something less than "real" writers. I'll think of Perrault when that happens. He created something so timeless it deserves to be called "classic."

Everything I Know I Learned from Pierre de Coubertin

2010-12-29T13:06:00.000-08:00

This week, January 1st, we celebrate the 148th anniversary of the birth of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

I freely admit I am an Olympics junkie. This is very odd, considering I generally do not like sports. I don't watch football, can't tell you how the local teams are doing, and am apathetic about the whole Yankees/Red Sox thing. But every four years I become a temporary expert on all things Olympic. I watch every game and competition, read all about the athletes, and memorize all the stats. Want to know the rules of beach volleyball or who's favored in the 100 meter freestyle? Just ask me.

And I owe it all to Pierre de Coubertin. At 5'3", 100 pounds, no one would have mistaken the little man with the big mustache for an athlete. But no man was more important to the modern Olympics. He almost singlehandedly brought the Olympics back to life after more than 1500 years.

Inspired by the English system of encouraging athletics in schools, Coubertin set out to bring sports to French schools. He had little success at first. He began to travel to other countries to study the application of athletics to education. Gradually, his dream grew. He decided he wanted to revive the greatest sports competition in history--the ancient Olympics.

He travelled the world, speaking about the Olympic Games and gaining support for its revival. By 1894 he had enough people interested to arrange an international conference. Seventy-nine delegates from twelve countries voted to revive the Olympics. The first game would be held in Athens, Greece, the birthplace of the ancient Olympics. On April 5, 1896, the first Olympic Games in 1500 years were opened.

Baron de Coubertin became the face of the modern Olympics. When he died in 1937, his heart was buried at Olympia, the site of the ancient Olympics.

Everything I Know I Learned from Margaret Hamilton

2010-12-09T07:21:00.001-08:00

This week (December 9) we celebrate the 108th anniversary of the birth of Margaret Hamilton.

Admit it, you shivered a bit when you read that name didn't you? Hamiliton was a gifted stage and screen character actress. Apparently that's what they call you when you're not pretty enough to play the romantic lead. Her looks were charitably called "plain." She had a sharp prow of a nose and eyes as piercing as a hawk's. Her voice, with its crisp diction, would curdle milk. That made her the go-to actress when they needed a spinster or a school-marm type.

But there is only one role for which she is known. She so inhabited the role of the Wicked Witch of the West, that she gave generations of children nightmares. It is hard to imagine anyone else playing the part. In 1979, forty years after "The Wizard of Oz" was filmed, when she visited the University of Connecticut as a guest speaker, she was greeted with a treat of Dunkin Donuts Munchkins.

She knew the effect the role had on children. My favorite story: when she visited older children in schools, she was often asked to do her witch laugh. She did, letting the cackle ring out through the auditorium. There was applause, of course, but only after a second or two of terrified silence. In those few seconds, she knew, everyone in the audience was a little child again, feeling the horror of seeing that frightful green face turn to the screen and hearing that cackling evil laugh. She had connected with her audience, and the power of it must have surprised even them.

How delightfully satisfying that must have been!

Everything I Know I Learned from Walt Disney

2010-12-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

This weekend (December 5) marks the 109th anniversary of the birthday of Walt Disney.

I once gave a talk to a group of second graders in which I mentioned that I'd done a biography of Walt Disney. One little voice piped up, "You mean that was a real person?" Apparently the child knew the name only as that of the entertainment empire. All that just seemed too big for one man. Perhaps that is a testament to all that Walt accomplished.

But yes, kids, there was a real Walt Disney. To me and others of my generation, he was very real, and we invited him into our homes every Sunday night when we watched his TV show. Before each show he talked to us lovingly and patiently, and never ever condescendingly. Not for nothing was he known as "Uncle Walt."

When we look at the huge entertainment corporation that bears his name, it's hard to believe that for many years Walt was a failure. Oh sure, he had big dreams, but it took a while for those dreams to catch fire. When he left Kansas City for California in 1923, he was nearly penniless and homeless. Even after he'd made a name for himself with his own studio, he lost his star cartoon character--Oswald the Lucky Rabbit--to a crafty business associate. He had to start all over again and come up with a whole new character.

Walt would have been forgiven if he'd given up on his dreams then. Probably there were those who advised him to do just that. There always seems to be some well-meaning family member ready to tell dreamers to get a real job in a factory or a grocery store. But that wasn't Walt. He kept on dreaming and creating. And children today know his name because he did.

Oh, that new cartoon character he came up with? It was a little mouse.

Everything I Know I Learned from George S. Patton

2010-11-11T06:43:00.000-08:00

Today, November 11, marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of General George S. Patton.

I know what you're thinking. Patton? Old "Blood and Guts?" That weird guy who loved battle, swore like a pirate, and slapped some poor frightened soldier?

Yeah, that's the one. Not really a likeable fellow at first glance, is he? How do you take someone like that and write about him--for children? I know we're supposed to be illuminating our subjects warts and all, but really!

I had already written a few biographies when I was asked to write about Patton. I'd done early reader books on Amelia Earhart, Paul Revere, Helen Keller. These were easy, obvious titles for kids. I was able to convey who these people were and what they accomplished without much difficulty. Sure, there were warts but not many. And then came Patton.

With every biography I try to get inside my subject, to see with their eyes and feel what they feel. It's the only way to write honestly about their motivation. I thought I'd done that with Patton. I couldn't pull any punches. I had to write about the slapping incident, but I laid out why he'd done it, how he saw the whole thing. I wanted to make him understandable. Then I read my draft to my writers' critique group. They congratulated me on a job well done. "But I still don't like him," one fellow writer said, shaking her head.

That bothered me. But was it important? Was it my job to make him likeable? Should I even try? Still, I couldn't help feeling that I'd failed my subject somehow. I was convinced that if I'd succeeded in truly making him understandable, Joan never would have said what she had. So I went back to my draft.

Instead of seeing with Patton's eyes, I looked at the general through the eyes of his men. They didn't really like him either. But they saw him for what he was: a great general who'd do whatever it took to make them great soldiers. They knew him as no one else did and they had nothing but respect for him. At his death, one wrote: "Last night one of the greatest men that ever lived died....The men that served under him know him as a soldier's leader. I am proud to say that I have served under him." That was like meeting George S. Patton for the first time. That's when I really got what his greatest achievement was.

I dedicated my book "For those who were lucky enough to say 'I fought with Patton.'" Today is not only Patton's birthday it is also Veteran's Day. To all our military men and woman I dedicate this week's blog post.

Everything I Know I Learned from John Adams

2010-10-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

This week, October 30th, we celebrate the 275th anniversary of the birth of president and patriot John Adams.

When I do school author visits I’m nearly always asked which of my books is my favorite. It’s probably the hardest question I’m asked and I often answer that it’s a bit like asking a parent to choose a favorite child. Then too, my choice can vary with my mood. But my students want an answer and so I force myself to make a choice. And most often I find myself answering "John Adams".

The reason is simple: Adams was a man of words. He kept a diary most of his life and contributed to it often. He wrote letters: lofty, spirited ones to fellow patriots, intimate ones to his wife, Abigail. He wrote speeches, articles, documents. His words reveal his every fear and hope for his new country and especially his feelings of inadequacy for the task at hand. ("We have not men fit for the times," he wrote once. "I feel unutterable anxiety.") His words made it easy for me as a biographer to stand in his skin, to see what he saw, and feel what he felt. In short, he made it easy to get close to who he was.

And if I’m going to tell a subject’s story, I’d better get close to him. That, I tell my students, is the single best way to write a good biography and I stress it constantly in my author talks. Find your subject's words and you'll find the person. His words will lead you to the story you want to tell.

Everything I Know I Learned from Doris Miller

2010-10-14T06:47:00.000-07:00

This week (October 12) we celebrate the 91st anniversary of the birth of Doris Miller.

Don't know that name? It's not one you encounter often in the history books. And that's too bad. Because Dorie Miller was one of the very first American heroes of World War II and the first African American to be awarded the Navy Cross.

Doris (Dorie) Miller joined the Navy in 1939. As an African American sailor, he was restricted to only the most menial of jobs. He began his career as a waiter and eventually became a cook on the battleship USS West Virginia, stationed at Pearl Harbor.

On December 7, 1941, Miller was collecting laundry shortly before 8 am when Japanese planes suddenly filled the sky. Explosions rocked the West Virginia, knocking Miller off his feet. The ship was badly damaged. Water was flooding in below decks and sailors lay all around, wounded and dying. Miller began carrying the wounded to safer parts of the ship. Among the wounded was the captain of the ship. Miller hoisted him up and tried to carry him to safety, but the captain refused to leave his post.

And still the Japanese planes kept coming. Miller had never received training in operating an anti-aircraft gun. So he was ordered only to help load. Instead, he grabbed the gun and began firing at the enemy planes. He kept at it until he was out of ammunition. Miller was credited with downing three Japanese planes that morning. He explained later that he had hunted squirrels back home in Texas and had used guns before. And besides, he pointed out, he had watched white sailors use the guns. "It wasn't hard. I just pulled the trigger and she worked fine," he said.

On May 27, 1942, Admiral Chester Nimitz awarded Miller the Navy Cross, one of the highest military awards for courage. Eighteen months later, Miller was dead. He had given his last full measure for the Navy he had already served so well.

Everything I Know I Learned from John Lennon

2010-10-07T07:37:00.000-07:00

This week, October 9th, we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the birth of Beatle John Lennon. (70? Really? Yikes!)

About ten or twelve years ago I attended an SCBWI conference for writers who felt they were "on the cusp" of being published. I was not yet a published author, but I was a writer who took what I did seriously. I had received some "good" rejections from editors (you really have to be a writer to appreciate what that means)and encouragement from my much-valued critique group. It WAS going to happen. I could feel it.

That weekend being with other writers also on the cusp was a wonderful experience. But one woman stood out in my mind. The talk turned to how disciplined we all had to be to get our writing time in. She sighed and said, "Yes, but then you have to be in the mood." I knew immediately that she wasn't going to make it.

You see, she was waiting for her writing to come to her. It doesn't work that way. Oh, I know, sometimes writing can be a chore. And the fear that your mind will draw that dreaded blank is ever-present. But, mood or not, what carries most of us through is simply that we love to write. We sit, we begin, and somehow, the clouds part, the weight lifts, and the words come. Over and over, we rediscover just how much we love what we do. John Lennon knew this. "All you need is love," he wrote. It's that love that entices us to sit and get the job done, no matter the mood.

That's what you need to be a writer. All you need is love.

Everything I Know I Learned from Groucho Marx

2010-09-30T15:11:00.001-07:00

This week, October 2nd, we celebrate the 120th anniversary of the birth of Groucho Marx.

I recall reading that Groucho (his real name was Julius) became a performer at his mother's insistence. He and his brothers left school at an early age to become first singers and later comedians on the vaudeville stage. Julius felt the lack of education keenly and compensated for it by becoming a voracious reader. My favorite Grouch0 quote: "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it is too dark to read."

I didn't have a dog when I was growing up, but I sure did have books. I had a local library that I could have found my way around blindfolded. (To this day, I remember just where the biographies were.) I also had a set of "classic " children's books at home: fairy tales, LITTLE WOMEN, THE WIZARD OF OZ, and the like. When I'd read all of those--and I read them all several times--I started in on the encyclopedias. I'd sit with my back against the bookcase and just thumb through a volume or two, the old fashioned version of Wiki-surfing I guess.

If you're reading this, I'm betting you recognize yourself in what I've just written. We writers began as readers and we readers are addicts. We aren't happy unless we have something to read nearby. We crave words like chocolate and delight in savoring a particularly satisfying phrase. We know each other without speaking. We are the ones toting a book or a Nook or a Kindle to the dentist's office or the kids' little league games. I'm embarrassed to admit I took a book on my first date (well it WAS the beach).

Groucho's not around any more. But it's nice to know that under the wisecracks and the double entendres and the funny mustache, there was a reader like me. I wonder what he liked to read.

Everything I Know I Learned from Michelangelo's David

2010-09-08T10:32:00.001-07:00

This week (September 8), marks the 506th anniversary of the unveiling of the magnificent David by Michelangelo.

There are certain moments in history which I would give the pinky of my writing hand to have witnessed: the signing of the Declaration of Independence, for example, or Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. But unquestionably at the top of my list is the first appearance of Michelangelo's masterpiece in the Piazza della Signoria on September 8, 1504. What must it have been like to stand elbow to elbow with the Florentines as they held their breath, waiting for the first sight of their David?

For it was their David after all, as much as it was the artist's. They had been waiting for it for forty years, longer than Michelangelo had been alive. The stone had been selected. Artist after artist had been offered the project. One or two had even begun to cut into the marble. But because the block was tall and narrow and half-started, they gave up and left it unfinished. Only Michelangelo could see what they didn't: the glorious potential waiting within the raw marble.

I've often felt, and I've written here, that writing nonfiction is much like sculpture. We begin with a block of material, as inert as stone. It's up to us to see the story within the research and to cut away what doesn't belong to reveal that story. It takes vision. It is not easy. It is even harder when others have left the job unfinished, and try to persuade us that there is no story there to tell. I try to remember Michelangelo and his vision at those times.

Everything I Know I Learned from J. R. R. Tolkien

2010-09-03T08:07:00.001-07:00

This week (September 2)) marks the 37th anniversary of the death of J. R. R. Tolkien.

For those of us children's writers who every Thanksgiving have to endure well-meaning relatives who ask if we're still writing "just" children's books (not my relatives, of course), Tolkien is the name with which to counter. THE HOBBIT after all was "just" a children's book. But it was so immensely succssful that its author was asked to write a sequel. The result, of course, written over the next 12 years, was the fantasy epic THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

As writers we all know how important it is to create fully fleshed out characters, and I've written before about creating place and time. Tolkien took the art to unheard-of heights. He created an entire alternate world and peopled it with not just realistic characters, but with highly detailed new species. His world was complete with maps, calendars, and family trees. And it was so real for so many that, according to the Tolkien Society, the author would get calls in the middle of the night from fans demanding to know, for example, if balrogs had wings. To escape he was forced to move and change his phone number.

Come to think of it, maybe I'll stick with my fan letters written in pencil.

Everything I Know I Learned from Abigail Adams

2010-08-27T08:25:00.000-07:00

This week (August 26th) we celebrate the ninetieth anniversary of the passing of the nineteenth amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

Hard to believe, isn't it--that for most of the country's history women were denied the right to vote? That women should vote along with men seems so simple and self-evident now, but less than a century ago, it was the stuff of rallies, protests, and bitter debates in kitchens and bedrooms. Many men failed to understand that women were simply demanding that most basic of rights--the right to have one's voice heard.

Abigail Adams understood this. On March 31, 1776, she wrote to her husband John, then attending the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. "And by the way," she wrote, "in the new code of laws...I desire you would remember the ladies." She implored him to allow women a voice in the new government. John's response was rather predictable for the time: "I cannot but laugh." Over a century later, "Remember the ladies!" became a familiar cry at Votes for Women rallies.

Abigail's thoughtful letters are now part of history; they are her legacy. As a writer she understood the glorious freedom of self-expression. As a writer, I can't imagine anything more suffocating than having one's voice suppressed. I hope I never take that hard-won right for granted.

Everything I Know I Learned from Gene Roddenberry

2010-08-19T07:48:00.000-07:00

This week (August 19) we celebrate the 89th anniversary of the birth of STAR TREK creator and visionary Gene Roddenberry.

“To boldly go…” OK, split infinitive aside (oh, yeah, I’m THAT kind of person), discovering new worlds is the whole reason I became a nonfiction writer. Through the books I’ve researched, I’ve had the privilege of listening to John Adams as he argued for the Declaration of Independence. I’ve stood with Sacagawea as she saw the great Pacific Ocean for the first time. I’ve explored the fields and woodlands of Vinci, Italy with a young Leonardo da Vinci. I’ve been there with the citizens of Florence as the newly sculpted David was revealed. I’ve found that the worlds of the past are no less exotic and enticing than any alien planet Roddenberry ever envisoned.

But that’s just the “go” part. Have I gone there “boldly?” Have I embraced those worlds wholeheartedly and placed myself within them? Have I done my research so thoroughly that I can smell the tang of the Pacific’s salt, feel the Vinci sunshine on my bare arms, or hear the collective gasp of the Florentines at the incomparable beauty of the David? That was Roddenberry’s gift. He created new worlds and made them real and then shared them with all of us. How bold is that?

For me, that is a work in progress.

Everything I Know I Learned from Alfred Hitchcock

2010-08-12T06:50:00.000-07:00

This week (August 13) we celebrate the 111th birthday of director Alfred Hitchcock.

My favorite Hitchcock quote:"There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it." Ah, tension, the essential element of drama. I remember the first time I saw THE BIRDS on TV as a kid. The scene of Tippi Hedren being attacked by the pecking birds was jaw-droppingly horrifying. But it was the scenes of the waiting, watching birds that made my heart speed up and the skin on my arms prickle with dread. That was just plain scary, and for a long time I couldn't see a bird on a telephone line without walking a little faster.

Now you may think that tension like that has no place in nonfiction. Wrong! Biography of course is just the story of someone's life, and no story should be without drama and therefore without tension. The story of any athlete, any politician, any inventor has tension at its core. Will my subject succeed? The better I am at making my reader feel that tension, at making that heart beat faster, the more interesting my biography will be. I owe that not only to my readers but to my subjects.

So yes, go ahead and include the bang. That's a part of your subject's story. But never forget to let your reader feel the anticipation of that bang. Your subject did.

Everything I Know I Learned from Amelia Earhart

2010-07-24T07:56:00.000-07:00

This week (July 24) we celebrate the 113th anniversary of the birth of Amelia Earhart.

Above my writing desk is a black and white poster, a print of a photo taken of Amelia's famous Lockheed Electra as it soared over the Golden Gate Bridge westward toward the Pacific Ocean on March 17, 1937. It was the dawn of the first day of her round-the-world flight, and the morning sunlight is just illuminating the leading edges of her wings. "Amelia Earhart in Flight," the caption reads. Beauty, solitude, and confidence--they're all there in that one image.

But I know a secret. The expedition that began on that March morning was Amelia's first round-the-world attempt, and not the one that ended in mystery and headlines. The journey ended only three days later, in Hawaii, when she damaged the Electra on a bad takeoff. Being Amelia, she refused to give up. The repairs took nearly three months and by that time world weather had changed. So when she began her expedition a second time, on June 1, 1937, she was forced to head in the other direction. She took off from Miami and headed east out over the Atlantic. You know the rest of that story.

False starts aren't uncommon in writing, as in flying. I've got a whole drawer of rejections and half finished pieces that just aren't good enough, dammit, to attest to that. But when I encounter a roadblock, I just look up at Amelia's gleaming Electra. And I head in a new direction and try again.

Everything I Know I Learned from Chester McCormick

2010-07-12T06:09:00.000-07:00

Last night, July 9, 2010, my dad, Chester McCormick, died.

From my dad I got my short stature, Irish temper, and compulsive need for clean floors. My sisters and brothers got the good hair, although I have to take this on faith. By the time children came along, the wavy auburn hair was gone. We never met that guy. Our dad was bald, and short, and wore glasses, and when I was growing up I knew that my Daddy was the handsomest man in the world.

It is sounds that come to mind when I think of my dad: the singular scuff of his shoes as he came in from the garage after work, waking up to the staccato click-click-clunk of an adding machine on a Saturday morning when he'd brought work home for the weekend. Each year on the first day of school, as I sat scowling at the breakfast table, he'd sing "School days, school days." The fact that I found this deeply annoying didn't stop me from continuing the tradition when my own boys went off to school. And they found it annoying, too.

As we all sat around his bedside the past week listening to him work hard at simply breathing, my sister Mary Anne remarked that he'd been such a hard worker. Every head nodded in agreement. Yes, he was. He said goodbye in the morning while we were all in pajamas and came home after we'd had dinner. I hope he knew that we knew why he did it. He did it for us. Every January for sixteen years he sat at the kitchen table and sweated over those hated FAFSA forms, creating a way for all of us to go to college. The harvest: six college educations, four master's degrees, one law degree. We are teachers, a lawyer, a speech-language pathologist, an audiologist, and a business-owner. You did it, Dad.

At my sister Eileen's wedding, he looked around at family members old and new. "This is what it's all about," he told Eileen's new father-in-law, "family. It's all about family." And he'd cupped his hands together as if to hold us all inside. It's all about family. That was my dad.

When I was six, I got my first library card. Now they pretty much give those away in utero, but in those days it was a rite of passage. Every Friday after that, my dad took me to the library when he got home from work. I was always waiting impatiently, the previous week's book in one hand, my library card in the other. But no matter how tired he was, or what kind of day he'd had, he always made the time. When I became a children's writer, I dedicated one of my first books to him. "For my dad, Chester McCormick, who always had time to take me to the library," it read.

I was so proud when I sent that book off to him. Sure enough I got a call from my mom a few days later saying how much they'd both loved the book. But that was all. "Did you read it all?" I asked. She assured me they had.

"Every page?" I was fishing now. Well, not the one with the numbers and small type. "Read it now," I pleaded.

When they both had, my dad got on the phone. He thanked me and we had a good laugh that he and my mom had almost missed the dedication and he made me promise that the next time I did something like that I'd send the book with a sticky note with an arrow pointing them to the pertinent parts. But then he said something I didn't expect. There was a long pause and he said, "When did I ever bring you to the library? I don't remember that."

As parents we do so many little things for our children and never stop to think that we are planting small seeds. I will never be able to count or even know the ways in which my dad led me and my brothers and sisters to where we are today. Maybe it's enough that we are there.

Everything I Know I Learned from John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

2010-06-29T08:32:00.000-07:00

This week (July 4) marks the anniversary not only of the birth of a new nation, but also of the death of two of that nation's founders, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

I knew I had to write about John Adams when I researched the Boston Massacre for my Paul Revere biography. Adams was well-known as one of Boston's leading patriots. He wrote fiery articles and spoke out eloquently against the British crown and especially against the presence of the hated "lobsterbacks" in Boston. Yet, after the massacre when the British soldiers and captain were tried for murder, it was Adams who defended them because he felt everyone--even the redcoats--deserved a fair trial. You have to admire a man with such a high regard for the law.

Adams' clear ideas and spirited writing brought him to the attention of the Continental Congress when it was time to write the Declaration of Independence. It must have been tempting to him, to write the words that would announce to the world the colonies' independence. Yet he argued that Thomas Jefferson should write it instead. His argument to his friend was simple: "You can write ten times better than I can." You have to admire a man who recognizes his limits as a writer.

I'd like to say that Adams and Jefferson remained lifelong friends. They didn't. They became bitter political rivals. Only as old men did they grudgingly set aside their feud.

On July 4th, 1826, John Adams died. His last words were, "Thomas Jefferson survives." But he was wrong. Jefferson had died a few hours earlier. It was the fiftieth anniversary of the country for which they both had fought so hard and of the document they both signed, the Declaration of Independence.

Everything I Know I Learned from Babe Didrikson

2010-06-25T12:16:00.000-07:00

This week marks the 99th birthday of Babe Didrikson Zaharias (June 26, 1911- September 27, 1956).

Babe was not only a superb athlete, she was also intensely competitive, with a fierce drive to win. Coming in second was never good enough for Babe. She had to be the best. And most of the time, she was. She is considered by many to be the greatest female athlete of the twentieth century.

She was also what my Dad used to call "a character." She had a wry humor and a plain, direct way of speaking and writing. That made her popular with the press in her day, although not everything she said was fit to print. (Once, when she played on the House of David baseball team alongside her bearded male teammates, she was asked where her whiskers were. I'll let you figure out the answer.)

I had a great time researching Babe's life for my 2000 biography. Babe was fun and funny, and I liked her even though I am certainly no athlete. Babe had passion, and that was enough for me. How can you not respect someone who practiced golf swings until her hands were bleeding and she "had tape all over her hands and blood all over the tape?" For anyone with a dream, Babe set the bar high.

Once Babe was asked how she managed to hit a ball so far. Her answer: "You've got to loosen your girdle and really let the ball have it."

Good advice for us all.

Everything I Know I Learned from Jospeh Warren

2010-06-17T07:35:00.001-07:00

This week marks the 235th anniversary of the death of American patriot Joseph Warren (June 11, 1741- June 17, 1775).

As a native New Englander, I grew up learning the names of the great Boston patriots: Sam Adams, Paul Revere, John Hancock. But I admit I didn't know much about Dr. Warren until I began researching my book on Revere. Warren was a well-educated and respected physician. He was also an ardent patriot and a fiery writer. His newspaper articles championing the patriots' cause helped stir up unrest and infuriated the British. He became a leader of the Sons of Liberty, and in fact, it was Warren who dispatched Revere on his famous "Midnight Ride" to warn surrounding towns that "The Regulars are out."

In the first important battle of the Revolution, Bunker (or Breed's) Hill, he was asked to serve as a commander. Instead, Warren volunteered to fight as a private. He held off advancing troops to give the militia time to escape, and was killed by a British musket ball. His death was a hard blow to the patriots.

I've been tempted to apply the word hero to many of the subjects of my biographies, from politicians to singers to sports figures. And the word seems to come pretty cheap these days. I hope I shall always remember Dr. Warren when I am so tempted. Take a moment today to think about a true hero, who risked all in the defense of liberty.

Everything I Know I Learned from Maurice Sendak

2010-06-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

Quick, when I say "Maurice Sendak," what's the first thing you think of? I'm betting it's WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. Mr. Sendak wrote and/or illustrated a great many children's books, among them IN THE NIGHT KITCHEN, CHICKEN SOUP WITH RICE, and the LITTLE BEAR books by Else Holmelund Minarik. But he will forever be remembered as the creator of Max and those great furry wild things.

Now, I could stop this blog right here. As a writer and presenter at schools, I am often asked what it's like to be famous. My standard answer is that I'm not, nor do I ever want to be. I do, however, want my books to be famous, well-loved, and read often. To have one of my books achieve the kind of immortality that WILD THINGS has done, and to have my name forever associated with it--well, that's a dream as wild as anything Max dreamed up, and I don't expect there's a hot meal waiting for me at the end of it either.

But I always wondered just where those wild things came from. Why do they connect with us so well? Mr. Sendak admitted he based them somewhat on his much-dreaded Brooklyn relatives. As a child, he was frightened by these large aunts and uncles who pinched his cheeks and said stupid-adult things like, "Oh, you're so cute I could eat you up," though he knew they never would. He tapped into that frightening/loving persona for his wild things. And thereby tapped into a classic childhood fear. Because don't all children have some kind of wild thing in their lives?

This week (June 10) marks the 82nd birthday of Maurice Sendak. Happy birthday, Mr. Sendak. And may the wild rumpus start.

Everything I Know I Learned from Helen Keller

2010-06-04T05:47:00.000-07:00

This week (June 1st) marks the 42nd anniversary of the death of Helen Keller (June 27, 1880--June 1, 1968).

The name Helen Keller has again and again proven to be one of the most recognized of our time. (It's no coincidence that I've written not one but two biographies of her.) So most of us know the story of Helen and how she was robbed of her sight and hearing as a toddler. We know that, as a child, she was wild and uncontrollable, attacking her family and gobbling her food like an animal. She was clearly a child in anguish.

But her anguish did not stem from her inability to see or hear. It was her inability to communicate which drove her nearly mad. Helen needed words like she needed oxygen, and she had none. No words to express her most basic needs, no names for the people and things in her life. Helen was hungry for words, and she was starving.

And then came Annie Sullivan. Annie gave her words and opened a path to communication for her. Helen later said, "That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free." No writer has ever said it better.

On her death in 1968, Helen was interred at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, next to the remains of Annie Sullivan, the woman who had unlocked her life with words.

Everything I Know I Learned from Jim Thorpe

2010-05-27T08:18:00.000-07:00

This week ((May 18) marks the 122nd birthday of Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe.

The title "World's Greatest" something or other is heard pretty regularly these days and its meaning has cheapened with its overuse. But Jim Thorpe was the real deal. He was one of the most versatile athletes ever seen, having played professional football, baseball, and basketball, and competed in track and field at the Olympic level. In 1950 he was named the greatest athlete of the first half of the 20th century, and came close to being named top athlete of the entire century.

He first won international attention in 1912 when he competed in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, where he won gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon. In the fifteen combined events in which he competed, he placed first in eight of them. His point total in the decathlon set an Olympic record which stood for two decades.

His outstanding accomplishment impressed no less than King Gustav of Sweden who, as he presented the medals to Thorpe, told the athlete, "You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world." Thorpe's answer has become part of his legend: "Thanks, King."

But really, what more was there to say? Ah, to have the courage to be so succinct in my own writing!

Everything I Know I Learned from Dolley Madison

2010-05-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

This week (May 20) is the 242nd birthday of First Lady Dolley Madison.

If it weren't for the War of 1812, I wouldn't give Dolley another thought. Sure she was a highly popular first lady in her time. But, at least to my mind, for all the wrong reasons. She was pretty, she was lively, and she gave great parties. Ugh! I'm used to writing about strong women, women of wit and intellect. Give me an Abigail Adams or a Hillary Clinton any day. Those are the women I want to write about. Not someone who comes across as the Paris Hilton of her day.

And then...she went and proved me wrong. Dolley was the first lady during the War of 1812. In August of that year, British soldiers invaded Washington DC and laid siege to the city. President Madison left to join his generals, leaving Dolley behind. Through a "spyglass" she watched the activities of the soldiers. She listened to the booming of the cannons as they got closer. At last she was forced to abandon the White House--but not before she had made sure that important Cabinet papers were safely secured in her carriage. Then, she famously made a pest of herself. She insisted on saving--not her own precious possessions--but the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. With others urging her to hurry and getting "in a very bad humor with me" at her stubbornness, she had the portrait's frame broken and the canvas removed. Only when it was safe would she agree to leave. When she was a safe distance away, British soldiers arrived and burned the White House.

Dolley's story is well-known and in fact has come to define her. Her actions ensured that history remembers her for her bravery and patriotism, not just her stylish parties. Attagirl, Dolley, you showed me!

Some people's lives have only one story worth telling. But what a story!

Everything I Know I Learned from Sacagawea

2010-05-14T06:39:00.000-07:00

Sacagawea joined the Lewis and Clark expedition in the winter of 1804-1805. She was hired as a translator. Although she was living among the Hidatsa, she was a Shoshone, and was therefore fluent in the Shoshone language. The captains knew they would have to trade with the Shoshone for horses to cross the mountains on their way to the Pacific, and they were most relieved to have her along to aid in the negotiations.

They would have been excused, though, if they were also a little apprehensive about adding her to the team. She was, after all, the only woman, the only teenager, and a mother with her newborn son on her back. Since they did not speak either Shoshone or Hidatsa, and she spoke no English, they could not communicate with her directly.

But on this date, May 14, 1805, Sacagawea proved herself a valuable member of the expedition. While Lewis and Clark walked on shore, she was traveling in one of the pirogues. The captains' important papers, tools, and medicines, were packed in the same boat. Sacagawea's husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, was at the tiller. Charbonneau was described by Clark as a "timid waterman," and actually comes across in the captains' journals as a bit of a buffoon. A sudden wind struck the boat, tipping it nearly over. Water began to pour in. Charbonneau panicked and could only wail in fear. Sacagawea, with her baby on her back, simply reached out and began scooping up all the expedition's precious cargo which was in danger of sinking to the botton of the Missouri River. The boat was eventually righted, but the captains were much impressed with Sacagawea's calm presence of mind. They made a point of describing the rescue in their journals, and a week later named a river in her honor. For two hundred years, readers of the journals have been impressed in the same way. Sacagawea's place in history was secured.

So many times, in our lives as writers, we encounter difficult times. We weather the storms of rejection and uncertainty. We feel pulled in opposite directions by the demands of family, and of day jobs, and our love of writing. When hard times rock our little boats, remember that wailing does no good. Instead, we must simply keep our eyes on what is important and hold on tight to it. We must rescue whatever it is that will keep us going on our journey.

Everything I Know I Learned from THE SCREAM

2010-05-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

This week (May 7) marks the 16th anniversary of the day THE SCREAM was recovered, three months after it was stolen. The painting, by Edvard Munch, is actually one of several versions of the same screaming figure on a bridge. Another version was stolen in 2004.

It's probably safe to say that THE SCREAM is one of the most recognized paintings in the world. It's even been mocked in pop cluture, by such figures as Homer Simpson, no less. Why? It's a rather odd painting, with its blood red sky and two distant figures on the bridge. It's hard to know just what the artist intended when he painted it.

Maybe none of that matters. Maybe it's not important to understand anything other than the anguish of the figure in the forefront. Maybe it's the depiction of that raw emotion, front and center, that strikes a chord. We connect with that figure on the bridge at a primitive level. As artists, that connection is what we all pray for.

Everything I Know I Learned From Harper Lee

2010-04-29T06:52:00.000-07:00

This week (April 28) marks the 84th birthday of Harper Lee.

I recall reading a brief biography of Lee back in 2007 I think, when she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I already knew that she was a childhhod friend of Truman Capote, and that the character of Scout in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD was somewhat based on her own childhood. But then I read that as a young writer she once received a year's wages as a Christmas gift, so that she could take a year off to write whatever she pleased. MOCKINGBIRD was the result.

Eegads! That bit of information took my breath away (it still does) and turned me pea green with envy (it still does). What writer has not dreamed of such a gift and promised himself that he could be a great writer if he only had such a gift of time. It's as cliche as a T-shirt: So many ideas, so little time.

But once I regained my breath, I realized two things. Most great writers don't have a year given to them to write. They make do with odd bits of time, with weekends and evenings and late, late nights. And they manage to turn out outstanding works of literature just the same. Maybe you just learn to keep a little bit of space in your mind always creating, so that when the time is there, you are ready with the right words.

And those writers who wish for more time? How many of them would waste the time given to them if they had it? It is so easy to fritter away a day or a weekend or a week with e-mails and Facebook and Twitter. A gift of a year is not without it's own pressure. How many people would spend the year paralyzed with fear staring at the blank screen?

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is unquestionably one of the great books of American literature. Lee's triumph is that she knew just where she wanted to go in that year and had the guts to go there.

Everything I Know I Learned from John Muir

2010-04-22T06:37:00.000-07:00

This week marks the fortieth anniversary of Earth Day (April 22). It also marks the 172nd birthday of naturalist and writer John Muir (April 21, 1838-December 24, 1914).

Muir has been called the patron saint of the American wilderness and the father of the American national park system. He was also a wanderer. Drawn by his fierce love of wild nature, he walked thousands of miles exploring mountains, forests, deserts, and glaciers. His wandering took him through the Appalachians and the Sierra, to Alaska, Siberia, South America, and Africa.

Most Americans would never travel to the places he did. But his eloquent words painted for them what he saw. His words helped them see in a new way the majesty of a tree, the wonder of a sunrise, and the soaring joy of a mountain top view. Muir's writing changed forever the way people saw the world around them. Isn't that the highest goal of any writer?

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strenth to body and soul." --John Muir

Everything I Know I Learned from Leonardo da Vinci

2010-04-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

This week (April 15th) marks the 558th birthday of Leonardo da Vinci.

I have to admit, I always found Leonardo da Vinci a bit intimidating. Just the sheer genius of the man made him seem cool and unapproachable, not exactly the kind of guy I'd invite to a family picnic. How do you connect with someone who excels at everything? And, as a writer, how do I help my young readers feel that connection?

A few years ago I stumbled across a great Leonardo anecdote in a sixteenth century biography. It concerned a monster painting that Leonardo had supposedly done as a teenager. The monster was so lifelike, the story goes, that his own father was frightened upon first seeing it. I thought it would make a unique picture book. But there was that stumbling block--that larger-than-life figure standing in my way. In the old biography, he was described as being talented at math and science as well as art, as being a gifted musician, strong, handsome, and popular. In short, he came across as the kind of teacher's pet I hated to sit next to in class. What was I to do with him?

I decided to use humor to humanize my subject. I acknowledged that this boy was an over-the-top "pretty unusual" kid and found the humor in that. I looked at his glowing accomplishments and mined those for some humor. ("Making your teacher quit is pretty unusual.") As the chuckles came, I felt my subject begin to thaw. The writing began to flow.

Humor is like sunshine: it will both illuminate and warm your subject.

Please look for my picture book, LEONARDO'S MONSTER, out Fall 2010 from Pelican Publishing.

Everything I Know I Learned from Blanche Stuart Scott

2010-04-08T05:02:00.000-07:00

This week, April 8, marks the 121st birthday of early aviator Blanche Stuart Scott (April 8, 1889-January 12, 1970).

You've probably seen those T-shirts and bumper stickers, the ones that say, "Well-behaved women seldom make history." (Credit to Laurel Thatch Ulrich.) Blanche Stuart Scott never saw those words. But she lived them.

I fell in love with Blanche's story when I researched a picture book on her (THE DAY BLANCHE WENT FLYING, available). Blanche grew up in an era when "well-behaved" pretty much summed up all a girl was expected to be. And she was anything but. As a child she loved to perform tricks on her bike just as the boys in the neighborhood did, and she held nothing back. She crashed seven bikes in practice, prompting her father to refuse to buy her another. Instead, when she was thirteen, he bought her a car. She proceeded to scandalize the neighborhood with her less-than-well-behaved driving.

She challenged tradition when, as an adult, she became the first woman car salesperson in the United States. She challenged aviation great Glenn Curtiss by foiling his attempts to keep her on the ground and becoming the first woman in the U.S. to fly an airplane (though she never obtained her license). Later, she became the first woman stunt pilot, the first woman test pilot, and the first American woman to ride in a jet. She raised eyebrows every time.

Blanche knew first hand that if you want to be a daredevil, first you have to dare.

Gotta go misbehave.

Everything I Know I Learned from Hans Christian Andersen

2010-04-01T11:36:00.000-07:00

This week marks the 205th birthday of Hans Christian Andersen (April 2, 1805--August 4, 1875).

Before I became addicted to biographies as a child, I read fairy tales. I always found the Brothers Grimm a bit, ahem, grim. But I couldn't get enough of Andersen's sunny stories. I read then over and over.

Andersen's childhood was anything but sunny, however. He was mercilessly teased and mocked as a child for his appearance. He was older and bigger than his classmates. To make matters worse, he was tall, lanky, and rather odd looking, with a long thin beak of a nose. All his life he considered himself ugly. Later on, when he had become a writer celebrated throughout Europe, he was asked whether he might write his autobiography. He already had, he answered. It was called "The Ugly Duckling."

How many generations of children have seen themselves in that little duckling? Andersen had clearly tapped into a universal fear of children, of being an outsider longing to belong. It's that universal appeal that has made "The Ugly Duckling" popular around the world for so many years, and in both print and cartoon format.

This is the charge given to us as writers: to look to our own experiences and share the fears and joys we find there. Those things will never change for children. After all, blackboards may evolve into whiteboards and in turn into smart boards. But the feelings of a child stepping into a classroom on the first day of school will never change.

"It does not matter in the least having been born in a duckyard, if only you come out of a swan's egg!"

Everything I Know I Learned from Aretha Franklin

2010-03-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

Today, March 25th, is the 68th birthday of Aretha Franklin.

I freely admit I'm one of those people who loves to sing along with the radio in the car. Loudly. (Luckily I do this ONLY in the car.) My favorite Aretha song to belt out is "Chain of Fools." There's something about shouting out that "Chain chain chai-ai-n" that just feels so good. But the song that really speaks to me is "Respect."

Who doesn't feel they deserve more respect than they get in life? But as a writer of biographies I know that to get respect as a writer, I have to give it. All writers have a responsibility to their readers. Nonfiction writers have an extra measure: everything we present to our readers must be accurate to the best of our ability. Biography writers have a responsibity not just to our readers, but also to our subjects. My subjects are or were real people. Their story is in my hands and I owe it to them to treat that story yes, with accuracy, but also with respect. For me that means striving to present not just the facts of that subject's life, but also his or her point of view. I want to understand and have my readers understand not just what that person did, but why.

That isn't always easy, or even appreciated. A number of years ago I wrote a biography of George S. Patton (Lerner Publishing Group, 2005). Not exactly a subject to give anyone the warm fuzzies. But for all his blood and guts persona, I felt I had to tell why he was the way he was. I didn't need to make him likable, but I damn well had to make him understandable. I respected him enough to feel that I owed him that.

I explained it this way to a friend once: someday, if there is an afterlife, I will get there and meet all the people I've written about. I need to be able to look them all in the eye.

All they're askin'
Is for a little respect.

Everything I Know I Learned from Little Women

2010-03-18T06:55:00.000-07:00

Not long ago I was asked to name my favorite book from childhood, and whether I remembered a specific line from that book.

The first is not an atypical question for a writer to get, and you'd think it would be easy to answer. But, like most writers, books played a huge role in my childhood. I was a voracious reader, so--a favorite?--I had many: CADDY WOODLAWN, THE WIZARD OF OZ, and endless numbers of ghost stories, fairy tales, and biographies--lots of biographies.

But there was one book which I turned to over and over. I read and reread LITTLE WOMEN usually about once a year, until the cover fell off and the spine was broken. So when I was asked to recall a line from the book, it's no surprise that the words came easily: "...on the bosom where she had drawn her first breath, she quietly drew her last." The description of Beth's death managed to say so much about family, about motherhood, about the link between birth and death, about peace, in such a few words. I was in awe. That was when I was introduced to the power of words.

I remember an interview with Amy Tan in which she complained, "They [readers] never ask about the words." It's true. No one ever asks us how we feel about words. And yet, we all fell in love with words and their power at some point. It's a heady experience to harness those little powerhouses to tell a story. To quote Rush Limbaugh (and I promise it's the only time I'll ever do THAT), "Words mean things." Choose the wrong word and you don't say what you mean. You've squandered that power.

If we're good, we choose the right words, the ones that say exactly what they mean. If we're great, we choose words that say even more. We choose words that speak of love and life and death as simply as describing a breath.

Everything I Know I Learned from Frankenstein

2010-03-10T06:38:00.000-08:00

In the summer of 1816 a group of friends went on vacation together. Among them were poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, and Shelley's young wife Mary. The weather was awful. In fact, that year is often referred to as "the year without a summer." Rain forced the friends to spend much of their time indoors. They amused each other by reading ghost stories aloud (the Romantic version of a pizza and DVD night, I guess).

They must have gotten bored with that, because before long there was a challenge. They should each write a ghost story of their own to share with the group. Mary concocted a frightening tale of a reanimated corpse, the result of "unhallowed arts." She said later it was based on something she'd seen in a dream. The others quickly forgot their stories. Mary continued to work on hers. Her novel was published two years later. This week (March 11) marks the 192nd anniversary of the debut of her masterpiece, FRANKENSTEIN, OR THE MODERN PROMETHEUS.

FRANKENSTEIN is still regarded as a classic of Gothic literature as well as a truly creepy read. It was published when Mary Shelley was only twenty years old. Because she finished it.

Everything I Know I Learned From Michelangelo's David

2010-03-05T02:53:00.000-08:00

This week (March 6) marks the 535th birthday of Michelangelo Buonarroti.

I was privileged to see Michelangelo's David on a trip to Florence with my husband a few years ago. There have only been a few times in my life that I have felt transfixed by what I was seeing. Holding my newborn sons, for example. This was like that. I could only stand and stare stupidly, awed by the beauty I saw.

Of course I wasn't alone. The tour group looked like a bunch of sheep, all gawping in the same direction. The tour guide asked us two simple--and I thought very wise-- questions. "Do you like David?" she asked. And, "What do you like about David?"

She got the expected: the beauty, the perfection of male form. For me, though, it was David's face. There was story in that face, more story than I thought was possible to get out of eyes and brow and mouth. And certainly more story than I ever would have thought possible to get from stone. I knew I would have to write about that face and that story some day.

When Michelangelo first saw the giant block of stone that would become his David, he knew that David was already there within it. All he had to do was to remove what didn't belong. I've always thought that writing nonfiction is like that. I start with a great amount of research and I know that my story is somewhere in those stacks of books and notes. All I have to do is leave out whatever does not reveal the story I want to tell. But I can never add; I can only take away.

When a lesser sculptor made a mistake and took away more than intended, he used a bit of wax mixed with stone dust to fix the void. A sculptor who had made no such mistakes could advertise his sculpture as "without wax"--or SINE CERE. From that we get the word "sincere." So a sincere work of art is one to which nothing that does not belong has been added.

My writing may never approach the beauty of the story I saw in David's face. But I hope at least that my nonfiction will always be sincere.

Everything I Know I Learned from Pierre-Auguste Renoir

2010-02-25T07:28:00.000-08:00

This week (February 25) marks the 169th birthday of Pierre-August Renoir.

Now I freely admit I am not an illustrator or an artist. I am frankly in awe of anyone who can make his hand transfer to canvas what his mind's eye sees. Mine simply does not comply, and it is a sad kind of dumbness. I've always been particularly in awe of the impressionist painters. To be able not just to portray a scene but to subtly suggest it through splashes of colors has always intrigued me.

But it is something that Renoir said rather than something he painted which truly speaks to me. "When I've painted a woman's bottom so that I want to touch it, then [the painting] is finished," he once said. Ah, now this is something I understand.

True, I will probably never have call to write the words "woman's bottom" again. I AM a chilren's writer after all. But I fully understand the desire to create so faithful an illusion that it rivals reality. In writing, this is the "you are there" goal. With every biography I write, I strive to build an image of a very real place and time using words as my paint. Then I invite my readers in.

In my biography of Babe Didrikson, for example (BABE DIDRIKSON ZAHARIAS: ALL-AROUND ATHLETE, Lerner, 2000), I described the ticker-tape parade Babe was given after winning three medals at the 1932 Olympics. I described the car covered in roses, the sound of the cheering crowd, and Babe's thrill at being honored. "Even though it was a hot day, her arms had goosebumps." Every time I read that line, I get goosebumps myself.

I guess Babe's goosebumps are for me what Renoir's lady bottoms were for him.

Everything I Know I Learned from Huckleberry Finn

2010-02-18T06:43:00.000-08:00

This week (February 18) marks the 125th anniversary of the American debut of Mark Twain's ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN.

I read the book for the first time as a kid, maybe nine or ten. I'd already read THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER and loved it. Tom was just the kind of rebellious troublemaking kid that I wasn't, and I wanted more. So I went looking for it in Huck Finn. The book was supposed to be a sequel, wasn't it?

Well, yes and no. It didn't take me long to discover that this book was different, it was more. And probably more than I was ready for. I really didn't fully appreciate the book until I read it as a high schooler.

But I wasn't alone in thinking that HUCK FINN would just lead off where TOM SAWYER had ended. I recall reading that Twain had originally envisioned the book the same way. He started writing it as a sequel. But at some point, he paused and took a second look at where the book was going. He set the manuscript aside for a few years. When he was ready, he took it up again. The reult was an American classic and a masterpiece of fiction.

I have to wonder how hard it was for Twain to wait. How many of us slog on with manuscripts that aren't really ready, aren't quite "there" yet, just out of the misguided notion that we have to keep working? It takes real strength to admit that we are not yet the writer equal to our subject.

I probably would have been happier as a nine year old if HUCK FINN had been the book I wanted. But I would have been the poorer for it.

Everything I Know I Learned from John Deere

2010-02-10T05:19:00.000-08:00

This week (February 7) marks the 206th birthday of John Deere.

You know the name. At least if you're a farmer like me you do. It's one of those household names, like Hershey, that's become so ubiquitous that it's easy to forget there was a real man, and a real story, behind it.

The real John Deere--or as one friend referred to him, "the tractor guy--" built one of the oldest companies in the United States, dating back to before the Civil War. When he died at the age of 82, he was a wealthy, respected, and successful business man. His funeral was the largest the town of Moline, Illinois, had ever seen.

But that's the end of the story. In the beginning, Deere was anything but a success. He was a failure, and a rather spectacular one at that. As a young man in Vermont he became a blacksmith. His first blacksmith shop burned to the ground. He built another one. That shop burned, too. (At this point his story sounds like the one about the castle built in the swamp in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL). He was broke, with a growing family, and he owed money. He did what made sense to him. He left his family and skipped out on the debt.

Things could only get better for him in Illinois, and they did. He built a nice life. No one would have blamed him if he had played it safe and stuck with his blacksmth shop. Instead he bet everything on a new kind of steel plow. Even as his plow business grew, he was never satisfied. His plows had to be the best. "Good enough" was never good enough for Deere, no matter the cost.

And so, in the end, his story is the story of the American dream. It's the story of a man with a dream who wouldn't let go no matter how many times fate tried to loosen his grasp. It's the story of a man who made the dream come true with plain hard work and uncompromising standards.

It's the story of a man who deserves to be remembered when we turn the key of the big green machine with the nine yellow letters.

Everything I Know I Learned from Ronald Reagan

2010-02-04T06:49:00.000-08:00

This week (February 6) marks the 99th birthday of Ronald Reagan. (Also the 48th birthday of Axl Rose. This is probably the best argument I know against the validity of astrology.)

I met a biography author once who told me she "writes to quotes." I write to anecdotes. I let a few well-chosen anecdotes reveal the story behind my subject's life. And, let me tell you, Reagan's story was rich with great anecdotes. Some of my favorites:

Once, when he was traveling with his college football team, a hotel manager refused to give rooms to the black players on the team. Reagan's parents lived not far away. So Reagan invited his teammates to stay with his family.

As president, he traveled to Geneva to meet with Mikhail Gorbachev. He and Nancy stayed in a private home in a room normally occupied by the family's children. While the children had moved out for the occasion, their goldfish had not, and Reagan was expected to feed the fish. Maybe he forgot, but for whatever reason, one of the fish died. Reagan had a staff member replace the fish and left the children a note explaining what had happened.

On his famous visit to the Berlin Wall ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!")he was advised to be careful what he said at a meeting not far from the wall itself. The fear was that his words could be monitored from the other side. So Reagan took the opportunity to go out on a landing to get even closer to the wall and begin "sounding off" on what he thought about a government that penned its people in "like farm animals."

In the greater scheme of things, these were not important events in Reagan's life. Such anecdotes will never be the main focus of a biography. It's the whos and wheres and whens that will always be the skeleton of a biography. But it's stories such as these that give biographies their flesh and blood. They reveal our subject in a way that a who or a where or a when can't.

So mine those sources. Look for the great anecdotes. Let your subject live and breathe.

Everything I Know I Learned from Lewis Carroll

2010-01-28T06:52:00.001-08:00

This week (January 27) marks the 178th birthday of Charles Dodgson, better known as author Lewis Carroll (1832-1898).

With the new movie adaptaion of his ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND due out soon, there will no doubt be more interest in Mr. Carroll. I wonder what he would think of that. I wonder what he would think of the movie. I can't help thinking that he and Tim Burton would find lots to talk about.

The Alice story was born "on a golden afternoon," to amuse three little girls. Dodgson and three young sisters, Lorina, Alice, and Edith Liddell, took a boat trip on a river one day. Dodgson made up the story of Alice, the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, and the others to pass the time and to delight the girls. It was Alice Liddell, the star of the story, who begged him to write it down. After some prodding, he did, and it was published under his pen name, Lewis Carroll. The book was an instant hit with both children and adults. It made the name Lewis Carroll famous. Even Queen Victoria was a fan.

But Dodgson never forgot that the story had been written, not for the world, but for his young friends. The book actually begins with a poem about that "golden afternoon" on the river, when three little girls giggled and gasped and begged him to tell them more. In other words, the story was written just for fun. As the best stories often are.

"Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out-
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun."

Everything I Know I Learned from Barack Obama

2010-01-20T06:56:00.000-08:00

This week marks the first anniversary of one of the most historic days in recent memory, the inauguration of Barack Obama (January 20, 2009).

I was one of the millions who watched on TV that day, transfixed as our first African American president took the oath of office. With me were other hospital employees on their lunch break, silently chewing and watching history unfold before us. As the Obamas made their first appearance on the Capitol steps, I heard a gasp behind me, and then, "Oh, my God." I turned and saw an African American nurse, smiling and crying at the same time. She shook her head in apology and said, "I never thought I'd see it." She didn't have to tell me what "it" was.

I was moved by her words. And I was terrified. I had just signed a contract to write an early-reader biography of Obama. His election meant so much to so many people. How was I going to adequately convey that to my young readers? How could my poor words do justice to such a momentous occasion?

I have to say this crisis of confidence happens to me with every new project. And then I begin writing. The flow of words never fails to thaw my apprehension.

This time it occurred to me that what I had to do was get out of the way of history and let the story tell itself, not through my words, but through those of Obama and those around him. The story was all there in the research I had already done. All I had to do was to choose wisely.

The story was in words such as, "There's not a black America and white America....There's the United States of America." It was in words such as, "Daddy, are you going to be president?" And in words such as, "Many of my ancestors have been waiting for this change, and I'm glad that I can be part of it." Those were the words that mattered.

And so I began to write.

Everything I Know I Learned from Stephen Ambrose

2010-01-13T11:51:00.000-08:00

This week marks what would have been the seventy-fourth birthday of historian and biographer Stephen Ambrose (January 10, 1936-October 13, 2002).

I really can't tell you when I first encountered Mr. Ambrose through his writing. I'd always been a reader of history and biographies, so I guess it was only natural that I read this most popular of non-fiction writers. And once I started, I was hooked. This man combined rigorous research and well-chosen anecdotes with the art of a storyteller. I'd never encountered such wit and sparkle in history before. He didn't just make history real for me. He made it matter.

When I was researching my early reader biography of Sacagawea (SACAGAWEA, Lerner Books, 2009), it was Ambrose's UNDAUNTED COURAGE I turned to again and again. If you've ever tried to slog your way through the original Lewis and Clark journals, you know that they can be, ahem, dense. The spelling and punctuation are irregular, the phrasing antique, the meaning frequently just out of my eager grasp. It was Dr. Ambrose who sorted out the tangled threads of the narrative for me and rewove them into that most wonderful of creations, a story. For that is what the journals were above all, a fascinating story of adventure, heroism, and drama. I only needed help to see it. That is what I wish for my own readers, that I can help sort out for them the details of a life and find the essential story that is biography.

What was Dr. Ambrose's secret? What made him America's favorite historical storyteller? I think the key is found in his own life. It seems that he entered college as a pre-med major. But his first college-level class in American history changed his mind. "I went to the registrar that afternoon and changed my major, and never looked back," he said later. Ambrose had found his passion.

And that is what I wish for us all.

Everything I Know I Learned from Paul Revere

2010-01-07T11:20:00.000-08:00

This week marks the 276th birthday of Paul Revere. So it is probably fitting that it also marks the debut of this blog about biographies. I've written about Paul Revere more than any other subject--to date one book, two magazine articles, and two one-act plays. And I can't tell you the number of biographies I've read about the man, for both adults and children, some endlessly fascinating, others not so much.

Just what is it that makes Mr. Revere so interesting, at least to me? Yes, the word hero comes to mind. Revere was certainly that. He was the colonists' go-to man when they needed a message passed along fast. The sound of his galloping hoofbeats was a well known one in the towns between Boston and Philadelphia.

But it's that midnight ride that really thrills us, isn't it? Thanks to the Longfellow poem it's a story we all know well. At least we think we do. The way I learned it, Paul asked a friend to signal to him how the British were coming by hanging a light in the tower of the North Church: one if by land and two if by sea. On spotting the signal he tore across the land shouting, "The Bristish are coming! The British are coming!" He was the one who alerted the colonists and lit the fuse that became the Revolutionary War.

Right? Wrong! No disrespect to Longfellow, but the version we've all come to "know" is all wet. The lanterns were a signal not to Revere but from him. He never cried "The British are coming." Why would he? He was a British subject, too. The call was "The Regulars are out!" And he was not the only one out that night alerting the Minutemen. His was one voice among several.

And there is what I've found so intriguing about the Paul Revere story. How much fun is it to do the research and find that what I thought I knew has been turned on its head? It's just plain cool to peel away all that much-loved fiction to find the real man waiting beneath. The only thing cooler is knowing that it's my responsibility with everything I write to get the story straight. Telling the real story of Paul Revere goes right to the heart of what it means to be a biographer.

So here's to the biographer as truth-teller. In this blog I'll be telling a few more truths about what it means to write biography for kids. We'll celebrate a few more birthdays and explore some more fascinating people, some living, some gone. Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure, I must tell you I'm a fan of post grunge/metal music and I can't guarantee that some of my enthusiasm won't spill over into this blog.

Should keep things interesting.